Gemini cryptoexchange gets its own digital currency

The famous twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who created the Geminin cryptoexchange, have made an announcement about creating an Ethereum altcoin pegged to the value of US dollar, which aims to undermine its stablecoin rival, the Tether currency, favored by most of the BTC traders.

Yesterday, brothers have announced the arrival of the Gemini dollar (marked GUSD), which bears the purpose of becoming something that the USDT currency cannot manage to become, namely a trustworthy and regulated virtual version of the USD, which will be possible to transfer within the blockchain platform and trade on cryptoexchanges all over the globe.

In accordance with the whitepapers released for the GUSD currency, it essentially is an Ethereum-based ERC20 altcoin, which the Gemini cryptoexchange customers can obtain by making a USD deposit into the accounts on the said exchange, further performing a conversion of their deposits into altcoins, ready for withdrawal to the desirable ETH address. Additionally, customers can trade the Gemini dollar for fiat USD, meaning the conversion can go both ways within the accounts of the cryptoexchange.

With such a release of digital currency, Gemini joins the ranks of cryptofirms issuing altcoins pegged to the USD or other real-world currencies. Tether is notoriously known for being the mainstream stablecoin, despite the criticism addressing its issuer’s shady operations and close connection to the Bitfinex cryptoexchange. Tether currency is alleged of being only partially supported by the US dollar, however, an inquiry, performed by an American legal firm this summer proved that Tether had sufficient USD possessions stored in the bank of Puerto Rico, ready to cover the outstanding Tether currency.

As of now, the USDT token stands as #8 largest digital currency, with market capitalization of approximately 2.8 billion US dollars. The only other digital currency with bigger daily trading volume than Tether is Bitcoin. This is due to the fact that the currency operates as the proxy for the US dollar on the most of cryptoexchanges that are unable to provide direct USD trading pairs.